Where Last We Landed: New Plaque Marks Where Space Shuttle 'Stopped'

Below:

Next story in Space

"Mission complete, Houston. After serving the world for over 30
years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history. It's
come to a final stop."

With those words, astronaut Christopher Ferguson signaled the end
of the 135th and final shuttle mission on July 21, 2011. Almost a
year later, the spot where STS-135 commander Ferguson brought
space shuttle Atlantis to its "wheels stop" has been marked with
a permanent plaque.

The 16- by 28-inch (41- by 71-centimeter) black granite marker
was installed June 28 alongside Runway 15 at the Kennedy Space
Center's Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) in Florida. It was the
third similarly-designed plaque added to mark where NASA's three
retired winged orbiters had come to their final resting stops
after each of their last spaceflights.

Atlantis' plaque is positioned 11,361 feet (3,463 meters) down
the length of the 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) concrete landing
strip. The SLF has one of the longest runways in the world. And
at 300 feet (91.4 m) wide, the runway spans from edge to edge
about the length of a football field. [ Final
Landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis (Photos) ]

Like the granite tablets that were earlier installed for sister
ships Discovery and Endeavour, Atlantis' marker features an
engraved depiction of the space shuttle landing, along with the
date of its final touchdown and how far it traveled down the
runway. The plaque also notes the number of missions Atlantis
flew (33), its total days in space (307) and miles flown while
orbiting the Earth (126 million).

When Atlantis
landed in July 2011, the locations where its nose and main
landing gear came to a halt were marked on the runway using spray
paint. Last month, that freehand notation was removed and
replaced with a smaller, stenciled note. Atlantis' plaque was
positioned parallel to the painted notation at the edge of the
runway so as not to interfere with the strip's continued and
future use by air and spacecraft.

The plaques were created and installed for NASA by C Spray Glass
Blasting of Cocoa Beach, Fla. The project to install the markers
began last year under former space shuttle launch integration
manager Michael Moses working with Kennedy employees Mike
Ciannilli, Melissa Jones, Dean Schaaf and Malcolm Glenn.

Atlantis' final, final stop will come this November when it will
be rolled over to the nearby Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
for display. The orbiter's new $100 million, 65,000-square-foot
exhibit is set to open to the public in summer 2013.